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Akeeba Backup for Joomla!

#8441 Getting the CRON to work

Posted in ‘Akeeba Backup for Joomla! 4 & 5’
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Environment Information

Joomla! version
n/a
PHP version
n/a
Akeeba Backup version
n/a

Latest post by nicholas on Wednesday, 02 June 2010 11:54 CDT

PJMFD
Hi
I seem to have the cron job functioning correctly as I am getting the following email through :


X-Powered-By: PHP/5.2.12
Content-type: text/html

Akeeba Backup Alternate CRON Helper Script version 3.0.b2 (2010-04-27)
Copyright (C) 2010 Nicholas K. Dionysopoulos
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Akeeba Backup is Free Software, distributed under the terms of the GNU General
Public License version 3 or, at your option, any later version.
This program comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY as per sections 15 & 16 of the
license. See http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.html for details.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Starting a new backup with the following parameters:
Profile ID : 1
Backup Method : curl

[2010-05-14 00:17:03] Beginning backing up
[2010-05-14 00:17:06] No message received
ERROR:
Your backup attempt has timed out, or a fatal PHP error has occurred.
Please check the backup log and your server's error log for more
information.

Backup failed.

I have a Heart Internet Reseller account and ma assured curl is set up ( CURL v7.12.1 )
My understanding has now taken me as far as I can!
Any help would be appreciated to get this going.

Many Thanks
Peter

dlb
Peter,

Please zip and post the backup log. That will give some information about where it was in the process and may shed some light on what is happening.


Dale L. Brackin
Support Specialist


us.gifEnglish: native


Please keep in mind my timezone and cultural differences when reading my replies. Thank you!


????
My time zone is EST (UTC -5) (click here to see my current time in Philadelphia, PA)

PJMFD
Hi Dale

Attached is log file as requested.
Many Thanks
PeterTEXT

dlb
Peter,

Do you have the job set to email the backup to you after it is completed? It looks like the backup itself completed.


Dale L. Brackin
Support Specialist


us.gifEnglish: native


Please keep in mind my timezone and cultural differences when reading my replies. Thank you!


????
My time zone is EST (UTC -5) (click here to see my current time in Philadelphia, PA)

PJMFD
Hi Dale

That's good news! Now I need to sort the next step out.
I have set the "Email on backup completion" in the Akeeba parameters screen. So I guess that is why I am getting the notification ok.

In the "Advanced Configuration" I have left the Data Processing Engine set to No-post processing.

I have run a manual backup ok and it appears in the Administer Backup files. There are none of the CRON backups appearing here though.

It sounds as though I am missing something!
Many Thanks
Peter

dlb
Peter,

Time to get Nicholas on this one. I'll flag the thread for his attention.


Dale L. Brackin
Support Specialist


us.gifEnglish: native


Please keep in mind my timezone and cultural differences when reading my replies. Thank you!


????
My time zone is EST (UTC -5) (click here to see my current time in Philadelphia, PA)

nicholas
Akeeba Staff
Manager
The backup log and the CRON output do not match. The log is from May 11th, the backup job tried to run on May 14th. The email you get comes from the CRON daemon, not Akeeba Backup itself. Akeeba Backup never ran during the CRON job execution.

The problem here is that your host has a firewall which doesn't allow the CRON job to access your site. It might strike you as odd, given that both run on the same physical server, but the truth is that CRON runs on IP 127.0.0.1 and your site on another IP. This means that even for local HTTP communications between the CRON job and the site, the firewall kicks in and blocks it.

The solution is simple: please tell your host to open port 80 to your site's IP for the CRON job to be able to work ;)

Nicholas K. Dionysopoulos

Lead Developer and Director

🇬🇷Greek: native 🇬🇧English: excellent 🇫🇷French: basic • 🕐 My time zone is Europe / Athens
Please keep in mind my timezone and cultural differences when reading my replies. Thank you!

PJMFD
Hi Nicholas
Thanks for you explanation above. I have been in touch with Heart and they have come back with the following :

"I'm afraid opening connections from the same server - which a destination of the same server is classed as a "loopback" connection. These connections are blocked by our firewall for security and reliability reasons. Loopback connections can cause adverse performance on web servers and therefore they are blocked by our system administrators to help increase the reliability of our services. I'm afraid this is set on a global scale and it's not possible to disable this on a per-account basis.

There are usually several other methods to call files/scripts on the same web server - I'd advise contacting the software provider for an alternative route here."

I am in the unfortunate position of not being able to use this facility?
Many thanks for you help so far.
Peter

nicholas
Akeeba Staff
Manager
Yes, there is another way. Use the native CRON script (backup.php instead of altbackup.php). It doesn't use HTTP connections, but is bound to PHP's maximum execution time and CRON timeouts.

If it does fail due to a CRON script timeout (especially true for large sites which take more than two minutes to back up), URGE them to at least increase the max_execution_time of command line PHP scripts on your account (perfectly doable) and increase the CRON script timeout by the same amount. If they don't want to do that, you can either bite the bullet and simply not use automated backup due to host restrictions, or take your site and your money to another hosting provider ;)

This last argument usually provides enough incentive for senior support staff to deal with your support ticket and grant your request.

Nicholas K. Dionysopoulos

Lead Developer and Director

🇬🇷Greek: native 🇬🇧English: excellent 🇫🇷French: basic • 🕐 My time zone is Europe / Athens
Please keep in mind my timezone and cultural differences when reading my replies. Thank you!

PJMFD
Finally got back round to sorting this out and the backup.php works all ok.
Many thanks for all your help and a superb product!

nicholas
Akeeba Staff
Manager
You're welcome! :)

Nicholas K. Dionysopoulos

Lead Developer and Director

🇬🇷Greek: native 🇬🇧English: excellent 🇫🇷French: basic • 🕐 My time zone is Europe / Athens
Please keep in mind my timezone and cultural differences when reading my replies. Thank you!

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